


Dead To The World

by menhir



Series: Winter Stars and Iron [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:52:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7063630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menhir/pseuds/menhir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nausea and fever chills came with splinters and needles and fragmented pain. Steve pushed through it, following the urgent pull of the bond to the lab where Bucky had been strapped to a table and left to die. </p><p>“Bucky, it’s me.”</p><p>“Steve.” Bucky’s hazy smile might as well have been the sun. He was alive. He was hurt, but he was alive, and Steve was going to get him out of there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead To The World

**Author's Note:**

> This story ties in with my Steve/Bucky/Tony OT3 fic [Nowhere To Go But Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6381397/chapters/14613505). If OT3 is your thing, check it out! If not, you can probably enjoy this fic as a standalone Stucky. 
> 
> Steve and Bucky are soulmates connected by a psychic bond. They can't talk to each other across the bond, but they can pick up impressions from each other. For their own reasons, they're trying to keep their relationship secret. I'm exploring more of that in the fic mentioned above. I think everything else should be pretty straightforward?
> 
> This was supposed to be less than 1,000 words. Oops.

“Your friend is most likely dead.” 

“You don’t know that,” Steve said, fear and rage crashing through him in waves. His hands shook with the effort to keep calm and focused. He still wasn’t used to this body, and if he let the energy have its way he’d already be running. He’d be halfway to the line and damn the consequences.  

“Even so, the colonel is devising a strategy,” Peggy said. “If he detects anything—”

“By the time he’s done that, it might be too late,” Steve snapped, and he regretted it immediately. It wasn’t Peggy’s fault. She didn’t know where his blind panic had come from. 

Bucky was too far away for Steve to sense through the bond, and had been ever since he’d shipped out. Even so, Steve had been operating under the assumption he would know if anything happened to his soulmate. That no matter how far apart they were, somehow he would feel it. 

He hadn’t. He’d had no idea Bucky’s troop had been attacked. Even now, he couldn’t tell if there was anyone on the other end of the bond and it made him sick. Bucky could have been wounded—or worse, he could have been trying to call to him for help, or to say goodbye—and Steve had been parading around in tights with a bunch of chorus girls, oblivious. Steve’s stomach clenched. 

Bucky had to be alive. He had to be. The only thing Steve could do was try to get closer, and then he’d know for sure.

“You have to let me go,” he said.

Peggy blocked his way. “I can do more than that.” 

 

+

 

The nausea and fever chills came with splinters and needles and fragmented pain. Steve pushed through it, following the urgent pull of the bond to the lab where Bucky had been strapped to a table and left to die. 

“Bucky, it’s me.”

“Steve.” Bucky’s hazy smile might as well have been the sun. He was alive. He was hurt, but he was alive, and Steve was going to get him out of there. 

 

+

 

The moon had yet to rise and the thin tendrils of starlight filtering through the branches were too weak to see by. The escaping soldiers hadn’t dared to light a fire, so the camp was hushed and dark and cold. So far they hadn’t encountered any opposition and all signs of Hydra forces were far behind them—but they were being cautious. Even with a full supply of weapons and ammunition, including an enemy tank, it was better not to draw attention if they could help it. There were too many weak and wounded to risk in a fight they could easily avoid. 

At midnight the watch switched. Steve and Bucky hadn’t agreed on a place to meet, but the two naturally drifted to each other. They settled down beside a pine tree without a word, shoulder to shoulder, breath steaming in the chill night air. 

“You’re not colorblind anymore.” Bucky’s voice came out of the darkness rough and dry. 

Steve handed him a canteen of water. “No, I’m not,” he said. Along with a straightened spine and stronger lungs, amid a host of other benefits, the serum had given Steve his first look at a world in vivid color. Despite months on tour with a gaudy performance troupe, there were days he was still dazzled by the crimson glow of the sunset or the purple ribbons in a girl’s hair or the orange feathers on a robin’s breast. 

Bucky took a grateful drink and screwed the lid back on. “You’re coming across kind of… bright.”

“Is it that bad?” 

“I got a kaleidoscope in my mind, even when my eyes are closed,” Bucky said. There was a soft thump as he leaned his head against the tree. “It’s makin’ my head hurt.”

“I’m not going to apologize for something that helped me save your life.”

"Yeah." Bucky laughed once—soft and humorless. “I’m not asking you to.” 

Steve took back the canteen and spared a swallow for himself. Super serum or not, once they got back to base, he'd be facing a court marshall. He’d be shipped back home before his military career had barely taken its first shaky steps. It was humiliating, but a lifetime of back alley beatings had resigned him to the worst. When the stakes mattered, sometimes a guy had to swallow his pride and let himself get humiliated. 

And the stakes had mattered. Bucky had mattered. They could take away the serum and ship him straight to the Red Skull for all he cared, just as long as Bucky was safe. 

“I didn’t know the serum would affect the bond,” Steve said.  

“It’s fine, Steve,” Bucky said. “Don't worry about it. I’ll get used to it.” 

Bucky had always been the strong one, but this time his bravado came across hollow. Whatever was going on inside Bucky’s head, Steve couldn’t parse it. Through the bond he could feel Bucky’s tiredness, but it wasn’t just that he was going on days without real sleep. There was a bone deep weariness tugging at his body, a penetrating ache and the echo of fire in his veins. Flashes of something deeper and more unsettling Steve couldn’t put a name to. 

Bucky lurched to his feet. “I’m going to sleep.” It came just a little too quick, a little too final, as though he had anticipated Steve’s next question— _What happened back there at Azzano?_

Bucky staggered away to take up a spot by Dugan and Dernier. With a sigh, Steve let him go. 

 

+

 

Coming back to base turned out to be just like coming home. Steve shucked his stage helmet and tattered leather jacket, hanging them on wooden pegs on the wall. The army brass had given him his own quarters in the camp’s only permanent barracks, reserved for ranking officers and VIP guests. He had four walls, a small desk, and the closest thing to a bed a guy could get this far out on the line. Not that Steve would have the chance to enjoy it for long. He’d barely made it back and there were already whispers that the higher ups wanted to give him a team and send him back out into the field against Hydra. Steve couldn’t get drunk anymore, but as far as he was concerned, recognition from his superiors was the next best thing.

It was enough of a distraction that Steve almost missed the muted jumble of emotions coming his way. Now that he was finally alone, Bucky was looking for him and Steve steeled himself for a lecture. Maybe the rest of the camp was singing his praises, but he'd been a reckless idiot and of course Bucky was going to call him on it. It wasn't like he hadn't earned it.

Bucky slipped quietly into the room and shut the door behind him, his mouth set in a line. 

“Buck,” Steve said, trying to catch him before the tirade began, “did you check in with medical?” 

“I checked in,” Bucky said. He grabbed the chair from Steve’s desk and jammed it under the doorknob, kicking it firmly into place. “Doc says I’m fit for duty.” 

What? After being tortured for days, Bucky could barely walk when Steve had found him. How the hell did that get a clean pass?

“We’re short on men and we've got guys missing arms and legs, Steve,” Bucky said, picking up on his unspoken disbelief. “Compared to them? A few cuts and bruises I can handle.”

Right, except it had been a lot more than that. Bucky's carefully strangled pain slipped through the bond in shards and it was as real as any open wound. He was ghosting by on sheer will, acting like Zola hadn't laid a finger on him. 

“Didn’t say you couldn’t handle it,” Steve said, stepping closer, cautious. Bucky scrubbed a hand down his face and Steve wondered if he could spare them both a confrontation. Deep down neither of them wanted a fight. 

“I should have written to you about the serum when it first happened," Steve said, "I know I should have. I got caught up and I was afraid of what you’d think. It was stupid, really stupid, but I’m not going to pretend I regret it because neither of us would be here without it.” He searched Bucky's face. "Can we just take a step back here? I thought you were dead and I just about lost my mind."

Bucky's gaze snapped up. He closed the distance between them and put a hand over the star on Steve’s chest, silently urging him backward until his legs hit the bed and he flopped gracelessly onto the mattress. Okay, so maybe this wasn't going to be a fight after all. Steve levered himself back to make room for Bucky to climb over him, straddling his hips. After everything they’d just been through, it was far too easy to fall into old, familiar comforts, no questions asked. If all Bucky needed was reassurance that they were both alive and breathing, Steve could give him that, no problem. He needed it, too. 

Steve slipped his hands under the waistband of Bucky’s trousers, memory guiding his fingers to the spot on Bucky’s lower back, just above his right hip, where his soul mark was etched. _September 9, 1930, 4:28 p.m., Gunsmith Alley_. Where they first met. Steve knew it by heart. He pressed into the skin with nimble fingers and massaged tensed muscles in slow, deliberate circles. He smoothed both hands up Bucky’s back and then down his sides, stopping just shy of slipping his hands beneath Bucky’s waistband again. 

Teasing had always been one of their favorite pastimes, a sure fire way to while away hot summer afternoons with just the brush of skin against skin, the promise of something more held just out of reach.

Except something was off. The physical sensations Steve was getting back through the bond were tingling and pleasant, but void of desire. Bucky wasn't even remotely hard against him, and his features were marred by an increasingly frustrated frown.

Steve loosened his grip. “Buck, are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

“That skinny kid from the alley,” Bucky said, his voice low and uncertain. “Is he still in there?”

Steve pushed himself up on his hands. “Can’t you sense me?” 

“I can sense you just fine,” Bucky said. He traced his thumb along the edge of the star on Steve’s chest. Softer, he added, “But somethin’s changed. I don’t know what. I can’t tell if the wiring’s mucked up inside my head or what. You feel different.”

Steve fumbled for some way to convince Bucky the transformation was only skin deep. "I did change, but I’m still me, Buck. I promise."

The corner of Bucky's mouth twitched. 

“How bad is it?" Steve asked. "We can take you back to medical, get a reevaluation. Or have Howard run some tests.”

“And be someone else’s lab rat?” Bucky smiled bitterly. “Had enough of that, thanks. Besides, how do you think I’d be able to explain the problem without them finding out about us, Steve?” 

“But if you’re hurt—”

Bucky shook his head firmly. “I just need to see something.”  

Steve had always been the one getting sick and needing attention. He didn't know what to do with the tables turned; but if Bucky didn’t want to go back into a lab, Steve wasn’t going to be the one to force him. He ran his hands up Bucky's arms, soothing. “Whatever you need,” he said.

“Right now? Just this.” 

Bucky pushed Steve flat to the mattress and brought their mouths together, swallowing Steve’s gasp. He drew Steve in with a hand behind his neck, tongue and teeth teasing at Steve's bottom lip, hungry and insistent. As soon as Steve could gather his wits about him, he yielded, turning his head and parting his lips so Bucky could delve further. 

Steve wrapped his arms around him, pulling Bucky into him and relishing the heat of bodies pressed flush together. Bucky drank the air from Steve’s lungs and breathed it back into him with each kiss, making him dizzy. Steve caught the reverberations of sensation through the bond—distant pleasure spooling inside his soulmate with the hot slide of tongues and lips moving against each other. Steve needed to come up, and Bucky moved to place kisses along Steve’s jaw, giving him room to breathe.

“Fuck,” Steve said, brow pinched, eyes fluttering closed as his chest gratefully expanded. 

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders eased and he drew back, resting his forehead against Steve’s. “Yeah, it’s you in there.” 

And here Steve thought he’d left the ninety pound asthmatic behind him. Guess Bucky took his breath away no matter how good Steve’s lungs were. 

Steve slipped his hands under Bucky’s shirt and up to his chest, his thumbs sliding over each nipple as he mouthed at Bucky’s neck. Bucky shivered and Steve mumbled into his skin, “I missed you.” He traced his nose under Bucky’s jaw and shifted his hips up, just in case Bucky had happened to miss the straining erection trapped underneath him. 

Bucky laughed. “Yeah, I missed you, too.” A small smile curled at the edges of his mouth and he ground his hips down, sliding their clothed erections against each other. He made a soft noise at the back of his throat and added, “Every damn day.” 

Steve leaned in to kiss him again, desire a live wire between them. 

Bucky hurried to unbuckle Steve’s belt and pushed aside the offending fabric beneath. He sat up and raked his eyes down the red and white striped top all the way to the bright blue shorts and tights peeking out from under the rugged brown cargo pants. “Jesus, Steve,” he said. “Did the flag throw up on you? What the hell have they got you wearing?” 

Oh, right. Bucky had never seen him in the full costume. Steve went scarlet. “It's part of the show.”

Bucky arched an eyebrow. “You mounted a covert mission into enemy territory and you were wearing tights the whole time?” 

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“Steve, this is the definition of a big deal," Bucky said with false solemnity. "I can't fuck the flag. My ma taught me better than that.” 

"Like hell," Steve said. "Your ma doesn't know the half of what you get up to. And if she did, she'd have a heart attack."

Bucky shrugged, suppressing a smirk. "Sorry, pal." 

Bucky made to leave and Steve grabbed him around the waist and flipped them over, drawing a startled yelp from his soulmate. Before the serum, Steve had never been strong enough to manhandle him. That was definitely new, for both of them, and Bucky's eyes blew out black in response. Heat and lust came crashing through the bond, surging in time to Bucky's heartbeat. Steve rolled his hips in tentative rhythm and Bucky groaned and opened his legs wider, allowing Steve's weight to settle. He pulled Steve in roughly for another open-mouthed kiss.

“Sure there’s nothing I can do to convince you?” Steve asked, chuckling into the kiss. He worked his hands down the back of Bucky’s pants and his fingers dipped into the cleft between his cheeks. Bucky’s hips jerked in response.

“Steve,” Bucky panted, “I want to, I really do, but we don’t have time.” 

Someone was bound to come looking for the captain, and he'd lose his rank just as suddenly as he'd gotten it if he was caught fucking his sergeant. Not to mention no one had thought to stock Captain America’s quarters for an illicit encounter. Steve didn’t have a drop of lube on him, and there was no way he was taking Bucky dry. 

Fine, they could save that for later. Steve could improvise. All he wanted was the chance to make Bucky feel good, to show him this new body was more than muscle and idiot recklessness wrapped in red, white, and blue. Damn the rest. 

“We'll be quick. Come on." Steve tugged Bucky to the side of the bed and knelt on the floor between his legs.

"Steve," Bucky protested, his voice thick. 

"Right now I don't care if the whole world wants to break down that door," Steve said. He slid his hands down Bucky's sides and along the outside of his thighs. "But if you wanna go, Buck, just say so."

"I don't want to go." Bucky grabbed Steve's hand and guided it between his legs, pushing Steve's palm against his hard length. "Just wish we had more time," he grit out. 

That was all the encouragement Steve needed to unfasten Bucky's pants and slide them down his legs. He took Bucky's flushed cock in hand, giving an experimental tug. His thumb swept over the head, pad teasing back the rim of his foreskin. 

Bucky swore, a blush spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. And that was better than any sunset Steve had witnessed since the serum. 

Bucky's mouth worked. "Steve, what about you?"  

“This is going to take care of us both,” Steve said, trailing the side of his thumb down Bucky's cock. "Just let me feel you, okay?" 

Bucky groaned. "Jesus, the mouth on you."

"I haven't even started." 

Bucky leaned back on his elbows and spread his knees as an open invitation. Steve lifted one of Bucky's thighs over his shoulder and leaned down to press a kiss to the soft skin of Bucky's abdomen. 

Bucky's chest heaved, and Steve could feel his soulmate searching for a smart remark, wanting to tell him to hurry. The words died on his lips, drowned by the straining heat pooling between his legs. Steve pressed the heel of his hand against his own aching hard-on, still trapped beneath canvas and costume shorts.

It wasn't that Steve experienced Bucky's arousal as his own. They were two distinct sensations. One was the immediate, grounded feedback from his own body. The other was a suffusing warmth and urgency that rolled down his spine in waves of energy that were all Bucky—intoxicating and dark and strong—and it looped into the lust and adrenaline already coursing through him.

Steve grasped the base of Bucky's cock and took him into his mouth, bobbing his head down to meet his fingers and back up again.

“ _God_.” Bucky’s head fell back and his spine arched. He threaded his fingers into Steve’s hair, finding the mark hidden just above Steve’s left ear, the one to match the soul mark on Bucky’s lower back. 

 _September 9, 1930, 4:28 p.m., Gunsmith Alley_.

Steve had fallen in love with Bucky even before the soul bond had been cemented between them. It didn't take much, just one well-placed fist to a bully's jaw. It was the first time anyone had come to the rescue for scrawny troublemaker Steve Rogers. And it was the first time Steve knew what it felt like to have a friend. As far as he was concerned, that by itself would have been enough to secure him by Bucky's side for the rest of his life. That fate had decided to bind them together and mark them as soulmates, against all possibility—that was just a formality, just the icing on the cake. 

" _Steve_ ," Bucky pleaded. 

Steve let go of Bucky's cock and moved his hand to his hip, pinning him down. He shifted Bucky's thigh off his shoulder and took Bucky to the back of his throat and swallowed. He pulled up and took him in again. 

Bucky's hips instinctively fought for their own rhythm and Steve held him easily. The unexpected use of strength sent another jolt through Bucky and into Steve, coiling at the base of Steve's spine, tipping him closer to the edge along with his soulmate.

“Steve, I’m—”

Steve smoothed a hand along the outside of Bucky’s thigh, encouraging. _I know_. The words would come through as patterns of light and color, impressions of love and support.  _Come on, I’ve got you._

"Fuck, Steve, please," Bucky breathed, eyes dazed. He watched as Steve worked him mercilessly, one hand moving down to lightly cup his balls and delve beyond into the crease between his cheeks. Bucky's lips parted, eyelids drooping. Steve pressed two fingers to the ring of muscle and Bucky arched with a silent cry. He came and the shockwave of pleasure rolled into Steve. He shoved his palm against his own cock to give himself the last bit of friction he needed, and then he was coming too.

Steve kept enough focus to swallow down as much of Bucky's release as he could, lapping up the remnants from Bucky's skin. 

Bucky shivered, over sensitized, and levered himself up for a kiss. 

Steve met him halfway with a murmured, "I love you." 

"I love you, too."

Bucky reached for the front of Steve's pants, but Steve batted his hands away. "We didn't have time for the first one," he said. "We definitely don't have time for round two." 

“At least let me see it,” Bucky said. "You have to take those ridiculous shorts off anyway. They're ruined." 

“I thought you didn’t want us to get caught.”

"I don't," Bucky said, “but I should get to see my soulmate’s genetically enhanced dick.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a way with words?” 

“Come on.” 

“Later,” Steve said, a blush warming his cheeks.

 

+

 

In the afterglow of their reunion, it was too easy to pretend things had gone back to normal. Or, as normal as things got running covert missions into enemy territory. For a while, Steve could pretend it was just him and Bucky against the world, like it had always been since the day they'd met. 

Bucky stayed by Steve's side, and he played the part of second in command like he was born to it; but the shadows behind his eyes grew deeper as the days and weeks passed. Grim focus overtook the resilient, dapper cheerfulness that used to define him. He sought out Steve less and less, even when they could spare a moment alone for the two of them.

Steve told himself it would be all right. He'd let it wait until they were back in New York and had the leisure to rebuild their lives together. When the war was over, they'd have plenty of time to heal.

 

+ 

 

"Something's missing, Steve," Bucky told him the night before he fell. They were huddled together in a tent, the snow outside howling and buffeting the canvas. It was the most he'd said about the bond in weeks. "There's something..." He trailed off momentarily, head tilted like he was listening to the wind. He shook his head. "Something's missing," he mumbled. 

And Steve could feel the hollowness in his own chest, like a chasm had somehow opened up between them, an increment at a time. They were lone figures on two sides of a massive gulf, and Steve had no idea how to bridge the gap. 

He just needed more time.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so it's hard to write a good resolution when the timeline ends with one of the soulmates falling to their seeming death. Canon, why you gotta break our hearts?? :( Resolution for our boys will come in [Nowhere To Go But Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6381397/chapters/14613505). 
> 
> Join me on [Tumblr](http://explodingcrenelation.tumblr.com), won't you? :)


End file.
